Notes on Philosophy

Occasional remarks on philosophical and logic methods, notes, and tutorials

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Argument Analysis: From Casual Logic to Formal Analysis

An article from Jan Korger and Florian Leber's Spacezone published on the Website Linux Today compares Ubuntu Linux with Microsoft (c) Windows in the following argument:

Ubuntu is not Linux. Linux is not Windows. Then, Ubuntu is ...

Penguin Pete told us Ubuntu is not Linux in an infamous post he later deleted. An unrelated article tells you Linux is not Windows. Anyone bad enough at math will conclude a relationship between Ubuntu and Windows and secretly that’s the real subject of both articles...

You can interpret this as Ubuntu is (like / similar to) Windows or Ubuntu is not Windows depending on your point of view if you're into such questions. However, this doesn't tell us whether Ubuntu is actually any good! (www.spacezone.de)

What I find interesting about this article is that the logic used, although not mistaken in an informal sense, illustrates several common confusions of many persons beginning their study of formal logic:

In observing these student misconceptions, I am reminded here of Ernst Haeckel's generalization of the similarity of embryonic development of human beings to the evolutionary development of species: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Ofttimes, in mastering a discipline such as logic, there seems to be a similarity of the stages of learning the discipline to the historical development of the subject.

For example with regard to (1) the relation of mathematics to logic, historically Pythagoras, in his geometrical demonstrations, used logical reasoning, but it was Aristotle who later formalized and distinguished logical reasoning in the Organon from geometrical arguments. (Of course, there is the similarity that syllogistic logic and geometrical reasoning are both deductive forms, but that is insufficient to imply the logistic thesis.)

With respect to item (2), in the Sophist, Plato addressed Parminides' confusion of the "is" of predication:

Well, when we speak of a man we give him many additional names--we attribute to him colors and shapes and sizes and defects and good qualities, and in all these and countless other statements we say he is not merely a 'man' but also 'good' and any number of other things. And so with everything else. We take any given thing as one and yet speak of it as many and by many names.

...(1) an attribute is predicated of some subject, so that the subject to which 'being' is attributed will not be, as it is something different from 'being.' Something, therefore, which is not will be. Hence 'substance' will not be a predicate of anything else. For the subject cannot be a being, unless 'being' means several things, in such a way that each is something. But ex hypothesi 'being' means only one thing,

The third misunderstanding, that logic is "the last refuge of a scoundrel" is reflected in the conclusion (of the quoted passage above):

You can interpret this as Ubuntu is (like / similar to) Windows or Ubuntu is not Window depending on your point of view if you're into such questions.

The implication from these authors is that you can draw whatever conclusion you wish from the premises provided in accordance with your own opinions. In truth, however, no conclusion validity follows from a syllogistic argument with two negative premises.

Translating Korger and Leber's argument into standard form yields ...

No [M Linux OSs] are [P OSs similar to Windows].No [S versions of Ubuntu] are [M Linux OSs].------------------------------------------All [S versions of Ubnutu] are [P OSs similar to Windows].ORNo [S versions of Ubuntu] are [P OSs similar to Windows].

The reason why no conclusion validly follows from two negative premises is negative statements exclude partly or wholly the subject class from the predicate class. So what is being asserted in in the premises relating S to P through M is being asserted regardless of the kind of statements being used.

By referring to the mnemonic of the mechanism of the syllogism sketched here, we can surmise that the basis of the syllogism is captured by noting that two things related to the same thing should be somehow related to each other, if at least one of them is completely related in some manner.

However, when both premises are negative, our mnemonic shows the classes are not related in some way to each other, and this information is of no use to see how the terms in the conclusion are related. From the observation that two things are not related to a third thing, it's impossible to tell whether or not they would be related to each other. This state of affairs can be illustrated in the diagram to the right.

So it's simply not true that we may conclude whatever we wish; in fact, whenever both premises of a syllogism show an exclusive relationship between the subject and predicate classes, no conclusion can be correctly drawn.

About Me

A native of Houston, Texas, I studied chemistry at Austin College and philosophy at American University, the University of Maryland, and the University of Arkansas.
When working as a research chemist in the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Walter Reed Institute of Research, I served on the U. S. Army Nuclear Emergency Search Team.
International publications are in the fields of science, logic, and philosophy; current courses taught are in the areas of logic, ethics, scientific reasoning, and Eastern philosophy. Specialization is in philosophy of science.
Current projects consist of developing "open source" readings in philosophy, logic, aesthetics, and Eastern philosophy in HTML, PDF and MP3 formats.
Logic Blog: http://my.opera.com/philhelp/blog/

Dictionaries of Philosophy

Dictionary
of the History of Ideas.
Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, edited
by Philip P. Wiener, was published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, in
1973-74. Now out of print, the Dictionary is published online with the help
of Scribner's and the Electric Text Center at the University of Virginia. The
dictionary includes articles on the historical development of a broad spectrum
of ideas in philosophy, religion, politics, literature, and the biological,
physical, and social sciences.

Dictionary of
Philosophical Terms and Names.
Well-informed guide to philosophical
terms and names by Garth Kemerling. Concise entries are hyperlinked to
additional reliable sources on the Internet including The Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Columbia Encyclopedia, The Perseus
Digital Library, Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind, and The
Catholic Encyclopedia.

Dictionary
of Philosophy and Psychology.
The work by James Mark Baldwin is a
developing resource, first published in 1901, including terms from ethics,
aesthetics, logic, philosophy of religion, mental pathology, anthropology,
biology, neurology, physiology, economics, political and social philosophy,
philology, physical science, and education. Entries A—O are completed.
The project is being developed by Christopher D. Green.

The Ism Book--A Field Guide to the
Nomenclature of Philosophy. Self-described as "an intellectual
"field guide" that provides brief definitions of theories, doctrines,
movements, and approaches in philosophy, religion, politics, science,
the arts, and related disciplines. It was originally written in 1990
and was first posted on the web in March 1996. In 2005 it was totally
revised and nowadays it is continuously updated on the web by Peter
Saint-Andre, who has placed it in the public domain." As a guide to
the terminology of philosophy including some of the ordinary language
meanings of the central terms, the list of terms is interlinked and is
especially useful in reviewing for examinations or for obtaining
definitions of key terms for philosophy papers.

Encyclopedias:

The
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This self-described
"Field Guide to the Nomenclature of Philosophy" consists of
regularly updated original articles by fifteen editors, one
hundred academic specialists,
and technical advisors. The articles are authoritative, peer-reviewed,
available for personal and classroom use. The general editors are
James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. The site is most useful for students
obtaining secondary source information on the key terms and
personages of philosophy. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
can also be recommended for obtaining an overview of the problems
of philosophy for background readings for lectures and papers.
In general, the articles are well researched and are accessible
by undergraduates. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
its main competitor, is perhaps better suited for more advanced work
although both encyclopedias are scholarly work.

Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This continuously updated reference
work is a publishing project of the Metaphysics Research Lab at the
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) at Stanford
University. The General editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia
is Edward N. Zalta. Authors of subject entries are well-known
scholars in their fields; even so, the subjects discussed are
authoritative and well balanced. The Encyclopedia is
the most scholarly general source for philosophy on the Internet
and is essential as a starting point and background research for
philosophy term papers.

Meta-Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Search this dynamic resource with results
from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind,
The Ism Book, The CatholicEncyclopedia, A Dictionary of
Philosophical and Names—constructed Andrew Chrucky.

Philosophy Information:

The
Internet Philosopher. The Philosopher is a tutorial on
the use of the Internet for studying philosophy. The tutorial covers
the prominent Internet sites, how to search, what to trust, and how
to maximize information skills. Other features include printer
friendly pages, glossary, and a link basket, teaching resources,
workbook, slide presentation, handouts, and downloadable poster.
The site is authored by Stig Hansen at the University of Leeds and
is a tutorial designed for UK higher education by the RDN Virtual
Training Suite. For students of philosophy, the Internet Philosopher
is most helpful at the beginning of the semester since the visitor
quickly learns how to access some of the most useful and authoritative
sites on the Internet.

The
Philosopher's Magazine. Worth a look is this sampling of
online articles with popular and introductory philosophical topics.
Links to international newspaper articles with philosophical content
are provided, but access to full content requires subscription.
The editors are Jeremy Stangroom and Julian Baggini

Philosophy
Forums. Philosophy Forums hosts excellently moderated
online discussions in the following areas: introduction, general
philosophy, metaphysics and epistemology, ethics, logic and
philosophy of math, philosophy of religion, philosophy of
language, philosophy of science, political philosophy, social
sciences, aesthetics, and debates on specific issues. This is
the leading discussion of philosophical subjects on the Web
with over 12,000 members worldwide. If you want to talk philosophy
online, this is the place to go.

The Philosophy
Pages. The Philosophy Pages includes a dictionary of
philosophical terms and names, a survey of the history of Western
philosophy, a timeline
for key figures, discussion of several major philosophers, a summary
treatment of the elementary principles of logic, study guide for
students of philosophy, and links to other philosophy sites on the
Internet. The site is developed by Garth Kemerling, is widely cited,
and has reliable content.

Guide
to Philosophy on the Internet . The site includes guides,
journals, mailing lists, philosophers, newsgroups, dictionaries, e-texts,
quotations, bibliographies, projects, and more. Most is out of date, but
some is still useful. Constructed by Peter Suber, this site used to be
the most useful sources of philosophy links on the Internet but has
not been updated since early 2003.

The
Social Science Information Gateway. The World Philosophy
Information Gateway is an extensive set of links rivaled only by EpistemeLinks.com, although the
later site is somewhat better organized. The Internet resources include
bibliography, books, journals, mailing lists, news, reference materials,
and resource guides. The site includes many of the sub-subjects of
philosophy and is fairly comprehensive. The Philosophy Information
Gateway is part of the Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG),
in turn part of the UK Resource Discovery Network. Visitors can sign up for
special accounts with priviliges for utilizing the site. Also available are
related extensive links for
Philosophy Resources (Europe), and Philosophy
Resources (UK).

SWIF--Sito Web Italiano per la Filosofia. The SWIF
provides many links to encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference
books concerning philosophy on-line. Links to reference works on art,
literature, politics, science, and religion are also indexed here.